Lawmaker tells Pentagon not to rush tanker modernization study

In a Nov. 23 letter to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, McCain cited e-mail communications between Air Force Lt. Gen. John Corley and Natalie Crawford, a RAND Corp. executive, in which Crawford complained that her company needed more than five months to complete the Pentagon's so-called analysis of alternatives, or AOA.

"This is not an AOA and should not be advertised as an AOA," Crawford wrote Corley in May. "One could do an AOA in five months on only the most trivial of topics. This is not a trivial topic."

McCain, the second ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said RAND should be given more time to study the tanker modernization issue, given that the study is "something that should take several months and that is going to commit billions of dollars over several years," according to Crawford's e-mail.

McCain, an ardent critic of the Air Force's stalled plan to acquire Boeing KC-767 tankers, said he was troubled that RAND's concerns "were apparently rebuffed or concealed from you by the Air Force."

The RAND study, completed in mid-November, is one of two analyses that the Pentagon will use to determine a path forward in refurbishing or replacing its aging fleet of KC-135 tankers.